The building refurbishment project for Marischal College which required the transformation of listed buildings into modern functional premises.

In cramped inner-city environments, space is at a premium. So, making the most of an often stunning, but disused, dilapidated building is seen as a positive step forward.

One such renovation was this £80 million redevelopment of Aberdeen’s Marischal College in Scotland. The Grade A-listed building has been converted into the headquarters of Aberdeen City Council, with the first stage of the project being to demolish the building’s interior.

Specialists Safedem were responsible for handling the delicate operation of dismantling the interior of the world’s second-largest granite building.

Based upon Safedem’s design, a façade retention system from RMD Kwikform was purchased, to be delivered across six phases of the demolition process. The design incorporated the use of Megashor towers with Superslim supports on the external façade and Megashor walings and horizontal shoring on the inside.

The combination of these systems needed to support a 400 ft long frontage and accommodate heights of up to 80 ft, while the innards of the building were systematically demolished.

The development helped to reinvigorate one of Aberdeen’s most striking landmarks, which had unfortunately been vacant for some time before this.

Keeping the character and façade of the original architecture and reimagining the interior of the building allows a city to retain some of its most eye-catching and iconic structures.

Heritage, especially that of our buildings, has always been an important part of our culture, and it’s incredibly satisfying to see that equipment normally used to create modern concrete structures can also be used to preserve and reinvent historically significant buildings.